LINGUIST List 14.1839

Wed Jul 2 2003

Books: Cognitive Science: Gentner, Goldin-Meadow (eds)

Editor for this issue: Marisa Ferrara <marisalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. dgw, Language in Mind: Gentner, Goldin-Meadow (eds)

	
Title: Language in Mind
Subtitle: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought
Series Title: Bradford Books
			
Publication Year: 2003
Publisher: MIT Press 
 http://mitpress.mit.edu/		 
			
Book URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/SP20030262072432
 
Editor: Dedre Gentner
Editor: Susan Goldin-Meadow				

Hardback: ISBN: 0262072432, Pages: 544, Price: $85
Paperback: ISBN: 0262571633, Pages: 544, Price: $35
			
Abstract:

The idea that the language we speak influences the way we think has
evoked perennial fascination and intense controversy. According to the
strong version of this hypothesis, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
after the American linguists who propounded it in the 1950s, languages
vary in their semantic partitioning of the world, and the structure of
one's language influences how one understands the world. Thus speakers
of different languages perceive the world differently.

Although the last two decades have been marked by extreme skepticism
concerning the possible effects of language on thought, recent
theoretical and methodological advances in cognitive science have
given the question new life. Research in linguistics and linguistic
anthropology has revealed striking differences in cross-linguistic
semantic patterns, and cognitive psychology has developed subtle
techniques for studying how people represent and remember
experience. It is now possible to test predictions about how a given
language influences the thinking of its speakers.

Language in Mind includes contributions from both skeptics and
believers and from a range of fields. It contains work in cognitive
psychology, cognitive development, linguistics, anthropology, and
animal cognition. The topics discussed include space, number, motion,
gender, theory of mind, thematic roles, and the ontological
distinction between objects and substances. The contributors include
Melissa Bowerman, Eve Clark, Jill de Villiers, Peter de Villiers,
Giyoo Hatano, Stan Kuczaj, Barbara Landau, Stephen Levinson, John
Lucy, Barbara Malt, Dan Slobin, Steven Sloman, Elizabeth Spelke, and
Michael Tomasello.

Lingfield(s): Cognitive Science
			 
Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)


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 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=6597.